New Papal Encyclical in the Works

Today the Catholic Church in the UK announced that on September 5, 2015, it will release a study guide that “is intended as a short accompaniment” to Pope Francis’s Laudato si. Explaining the decision, Cardinal Vincent Nicols stated: “Well, as you all know, Laudato si itself is a monster in terms of paper and pure repetitiveness, so we just thought that if we could shorten it a bit and hit the highlights we might stop some people getting the original and having to suffer through it. We also thought that the original, for most people, might unnecessarily waste paper. In this way we feel that we can contribute to the minimisation of suffering of our fellow man and to the protection of the environment, which, after all, Pope Francis so desperately seeks.”

However, to achieve the end of deepening the reader’s understanding of the theology of creation, the study guide does bear a large disclaimer to the effect that anyone with anything resembling the ability to think critically, functional literacy, or even a cursory knowledge of science and/or Catholic theology, should refrain from picking it up.

To that end, the study guide will come with a pack of crayons and it contains many black and white drawings which can be filled in. Weather phenomena such as clouds, rainy blustery days, and people sweating while engaged in human trafficking are all depicted in addition to air-conditioners, plastic cups and dunghills. In explaining this, Archbishop Tartaglia of Scotland said: “We thought that we would make it as engaging as possible.”

On a related note, the Vatican has announced that Pope Francis is working on his newest encyclical which bears the working title Lux. In this, new, encyclical the Holy Father proposes to settle, once and for all, definitively and as a matter of religious faith the question as to whether light is a particle or a wave.

Those close to the Pope who know about the project have revealed that the Holy Father is confident that plenty of Biblical precedent exists for his authoritatively speaking out in Lux. For example, God created light, Lucifer was the Angel of Light, and Jesus saw Satan falling from Heaven in a bolt of light. Moreover, the Bible frequently compares good and evil to light and dark.

Thus, Pope Francis is convinced that these biblical foundations will give his thoughts in the area sufficient doctrinal weight to resolve the matter once and for all so that physicists might focus on other matters.